Across the world, dogs are being taken from streets and communities and placed into publicly funded shelters, municipal facilities, pounds and other forms of accommodation. Governments and local authorities spend public money collecting, housing and managing those dogs, yet in many places it can be surprisingly difficult to establish something as basic as where the dogs are being held, how many are there, what happens to them once they enter the system or who is responsible for checking the conditions in which they are kept.
That is why Dog Desk Animal Action is launching Show Us Your Shelter.
Over the past year, our work monitoring developments affecting dogs internationally has repeatedly brought us back to the same problem. A decision is announced, dogs are collected, a municipality says animals are being taken into its shelter system and then the trail can become much harder to follow. Sometimes detailed information is published. Sometimes only fragments are available. Sometimes finding basic figures requires searching through municipal announcements, government documents and local reporting. And sometimes we simply cannot establish from publicly available information what happened to the dogs after they were taken away.
That worries us. When a dog enters a publicly funded system, there should be a record of what happens next. Did that dog return to an owner? Was the dog adopted? Transferred elsewhere? Returned to the community where that is permitted? Is the dog still in care? Did the dog die? Was the dog euthanised? We believe those are perfectly reasonable questions for the public to be able to answer.
We also want to understand what oversight exists. Who inspects these facilities? When was the last inspection? What did inspectors find? If improvements were required, were they made? Again, this isn’t specialist information that should only become visible after somebody starts asking difficult questions. It is basic information about the operation of a publicly funded service responsible for living animals. And this is important for another reason. Transparency protects good shelters too.
There are municipal shelters and public facilities where people are doing difficult work under enormous pressure. Staff may be caring for large numbers of dogs with limited resources while facing criticism from people who have very little information about what is actually happening inside. Publishing clear figures, inspection findings and outcomes gives those facilities an opportunity to demonstrate their work as well as allowing genuine problems to be identified.
So we are not beginning this campaign with an assumption that every shelter we are shown has something to hide or is failing. We are beginning with a much simpler principle: if the public funds the system, the public should be able to see how the system is working.
Our approach is built around three things: Visibility. Numbers. Inspection.
Can people find the shelter and identify who is responsible for it? Can they see how many dogs enter the system and what happens to them? And can they establish who provides independent or official oversight and what that oversight has found?
To begin answering those questions globally, we need to know where the shelters are. And that is where we are asking for your help. If you know of a publicly funded dog shelter where you live, show it to us. Tell us the country and the town or city. If you know the shelter’s name, tell us that too. If you already know which municipality or public authority operates it, you can tell us, but you don’t need to.
Most importantly, we are not asking you to investigate it. Please don’t visit a shelter on our behalf. Don’t approach staff or authorities. Don’t start searching for inspection reports or trying to obtain statistics. You don’t need to prove that there is a problem, and you don’t need to establish whether the shelter is good or bad. Just tell us where it is. We’ll take it from there.
Dog Desk Animal Action will carry out the research. We will look for the information already in the public domain, establish who is responsible for the facility and, where appropriate, approach the relevant authority directly for information that we have been unable to establish.
We will record what we find carefully. If information is publicly available, we will record that. If an authority provides information when asked, we will record that too. If information is only partially available, if an authority tells us it does not hold particular information, or if we receive no response, that will be recorded for what it is. A missing document or unanswered email will not be turned into an allegation about what is happening to dogs. This is about building evidence, not assumptions.
Alongside the campaign, we have published an open letter to governments, municipalities and public authorities responsible for publicly funded dog shelters. We are asking them to make basic information about their shelter systems routinely available: where dogs are held, how many enter, what happens to them, who inspects the facilities and what those inspections find. Members of the public can add their names to that request.
And all of this work has a destination.
In 2027, Dog Desk Animal Action will publish the Global Shelter Pressure Map. The aim is to begin building a global picture of publicly funded dog shelter systems using evidence that can be checked, compared and understood. Show Us Your Shelter is one of the ways we begin finding the facilities that need to be researched.
There are thousands of municipalities, councils and public authorities around the world. We cannot know every shelter they operate. But the people who live in those communities often do. So this September, we’re asking one very simple question.
Do you know where your publicly funded dog shelter is?
Show us. That’s it. We’ll take it from here. Public Money. Public Accountability.
Visit the Show Us Your Shelter campaign page to tell us about a publicly funded shelter in your area and add your name to our open letter calling for greater transparency and accountability.